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My 2.0 Life: Five Sites to Use When Moving to a New City
August 11th, 2008I have some exciting news, as of September I will be relocating to Chicago for three months to work on some cool projects- which I’ll be able to talk about very soon!
Now I’ve never been to Chicago and was faced with the daunting task of figuring out a place to live, etc. Thankfully, the Internet came to my rescue, and I found some pretty great sites that I thought I’d pass along to anyone who finds themselves destined for an unfamiliar city.
I’m going to be writing about my experiences in moving to a new city in terms of leveraging social media to find a place, meet new people, get informed, etc. So stay tuned for more of those posts as we get closer to September, I’ll be tagging them with “My 2.0 Life”
A great mash-up combining Craig’s List with Google Maps. You can filter search results by price and search for properties to rent or buy. This was how I found my new place within a few days. For someone who doesn’t know the geography of a city that well, this is a great insurance policy to ensure you’re not responding to an ad that’s out in the boonies somewhere, and saves you the effort of having to Google Map each individual listing.
2) WalkScore.com - The Search for a walkable neighbourhood
Since I won’t have a car in Chicago, it was important for me to find a place that had all the amenities I needed close by. Here’s how it works: you input your address and it calculates the “walkability” based on the availability of nearby stores, restaurants, bookstores, cafes, schools & parks. Scores range from Car Dependent to Walker’s paradise, and the map helpfully points out all the amenities by name and distance.
A neat feature about this mash-up is you can use Google’s Street view to virtually check out your new digs. Especially useful for those of us that can’t go down beforehand in real life.
This one is city-specific but I’m sure similar things exist for whatever city you’re looking for. I’ve been really impressed by how some realtors have upped their game in terms of providing potential buyers with the right information needed to make a decision. This mash-up contains the city of Chicago with various options that you can overlay on the map including transit routes, hospitals, pharmacies and more. It also provides some great demographic maps that break down the types of people living there (young professionals vs. families)
I also found a great Google Map showing the Chicago with an overlay of neighborhood boundaries. This helped me out as it gave me a visual idea of the different areas within each city.
4) Every block - Crime Mash Up
Again, you can find these for pretty much any city (Everyblock also has maps for SF, Charlotte, New York City and Philadelphia) but Chicago was one of the first cities to do this, and very helpful for a certain New Media Maverick in making sure she stays out of Murderville and finds a nice place in Hip&Ecclectic Town. It was a pretty close call actually, I was about to choose a place and then I realized that there had been a little too many murders/assaults/robberies/house invasions for my liking.
5) Walk/Jog/Run
Another Google Mashup if you like to walk/run/jog or in my case stroll/skip/saunter this is a great site that can help you find the best routes. You can map your own route or check out routes that other people have created. It even has a nifty distance filter that lets you pick search for routes that are a particular distance.
I think this would make a great Foush Reports Episode! Maybe I’ll have some time to shoot it tomorrow, we’ll see.
Posted in Tech & New Media | 1 Comment »
Seriously? Viacom wins right to YouTube viewer logs
July 3rd, 2008The BBC reported today that Viacom (for a funny definition that I agree with courtesy of urbandictionary.com click here) has won a court ruling against Google who must now hand over Youtube’s view logs which include the viewing habits of anyone who has ever watched a video on the site.
Viacom is alleging Copyright infringement, as they estimate there are currently 160,000 unauthorized clips of the company’s material that have been viewed 1.5 Billion times. The ruling is being called a “set-back to privacy rights” by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
But wait, there’s more. Privacy experts at lashing out at the usually benevolent internet giant for continuing to use IP addresses when they can be tracked back to users.
A Snippet from the Article:
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‘Erroneous ruling’
Leading privacy expert Simon Davies told BBC News that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was threatened.
He said: “The chickens have come home to roost for Google.
“Their arrogance and refusal to listen to friendly advice has resulted in the privacy of tens of millions being placed under threat.”
Mr Davies said privacy campaigners had warned Google for years that IP addresses were personally identifiable information.
Google pledged last year to anonymise IP addresses for search information but it has said nothing about YouTube data.
Mr Davies said: “Governments and organisations are realising that companies like Google have a warehouse full of data. And while that data is stored it is under threat of being used and putting privacy in danger.”
The EFF said: “The Court’s erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube.
“We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users.”
The body said the ruling was also potentially unlawful because the log data did contain personally identifiable data.
The court also ruled that Google disclose to Viacom the details of all videos that have been removed from the site for any reason.
What this means:
If ‘ol Rupert wanted to, he’d be able to figure out exactly which videos a particular user has viewed. While that’s not enough to reveal your identity necessarily, privacy experts worry that this information might be easy to extrapolate given that many people have personal a YouTube id that is personal, or might even include their name. Mix that in with your computer’s IP address and someone who was interested enough could probably put the pieces together and figure out who you are.
Keep in mind, that IP addresses are provided by your ISP, and usually change over time, which means that Viacom would have to call up Rogers to get that information, and that will usually mean needing to have a court order. Plus, Viacom hasn’t declared any intent to hunt down the culprit youtube users. (Hey Viacom, here’s a hint: it’s all of us.)
And over at the GooglePlex…
Somewhere on that beautiful campus, there are a team of Google lawyers meeting in a room full of plastic balls to discuss the situation. Currently, Google doesn’t think they should hand the log over because of the aforementioned privacy concerns. They will most likely challenge this order.
Privacy associations like the Electronic Fronteir Foundation is demanding Vicaom “Back off this overbroad request” To which Viacom cackled evilly and resumed their plans to build the death star.
Instead of the War on Terror, CNN should be monitoring the War On Privacy. It’s eroding right beneath our noses if we don’t all wake up and do something about it.
Posted in Blog, Seriously?, Tech & New Media | No Comments »
Google to Facebook: Game ON!
May 16th, 2008
There was an interesting article from Time Magazine a few days ago about a new initiative being started by the super brains at Google.
It’s no secret that Google has been eying the gigantic social networking pie dominated by Facebook and trying to figure out the best way to enter the field. According to a new project, they don’t want to just enter the field, they’re going to level it.
Soon, every website will have the ability to be it’s own social network. Google announced that it will be entering the “social plumbing” business, and developing a set of tools that would allow each site to add an endless number of applications and the infrastructure to let users communicate amongst each other. Hey Googlers, when will you enter the “social electricity” business and figure out a way to bypass the ISP’s and power this bad boy of an internet?
The program is called Friend Connect. Any site can apply but only one or two dozen sites will be chosen for the initial preview release (aka pilot program)
What you need to know:
- One the program is live you’ll have to cut and paste a few lines of code onto your site.
- You’ll be able to choose from tons of applications, which range from creating a playlist for your favorite songs to the ability to geolocate your friends.
- The program uses OpenID, which is already utilized by some of the largest sites like AOL, and of course Google. So your Gmail Login is your OpenID, presto chango, no multiple login required.
- If you’re logged in, you’ll be able to see your list of contacts and follow their activities on any Friend Connect site. Privacy settings still stand, so if I posted a comment on a wall on a site, only my friends who read that site would be able to read it, strangers wouldn’t even see my comment at all.
What does this mean?
This is Google’s response to Facebook’s walled garden approach, which I previously blogged about
They are replicating Facebook’s key differentiator which is the ability to define your network (friends) as well as the applications or filters through which you view the world and allowing users to exert that control on the wide open web.
Where I see this going:
- Goodbye one way broadcasting. Interactivity on the web has been kicked up another level. If this program takes off, many more sites will have the ability to create networks and community without the hassle of multiple logins or data portability challenges.
- Evolution of new marketing metrics. This is the new age of marketing metrics. I foresee new consumer profiles being built (by Google) based on not only search engine parameters but by the applications that users prefer to communicate through. (For example, I wonder how you would market a product to a consumer who prefers wall postings, vs. instant chat applications…) Talk about a customized sales response!
- New Implications for Closed Communities. I wonder what’s going to happen to companies that don’t join OpenSocial. All the benefits of Facebook become less important if you can’t apply them to your regular surfing behavior. Maybe Facebook will introduce their own web browser to allow similar Friend Connect features within their home turf. That remains to be seen.
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